User blog:TrollofReason/What a Troll thinks you should also know...
This is the Dead Space Wikia-run wiki. As a wiki anyone can contribute to it, and that is a good thing. Dead Space is a science fiction series set in a far-flung future, and that is an awesome thing. Most people don't know enough elementary science (or biology) to know what they are talking about when they use terms like "virus," and that is a bad thing. Bad science fiction writing is perfectly preventable with a few bits of information. To make this blog post readable, I'll be breaking it into sections so you don't have to look at solid walls of text. Paragraphs will be as brief as possible, running along a simple sentence=thought, paragraph=complete idea format. I am not a specialist in science and have had no formal training, so I'm not versed enough (or willing) to go into minute technical details about the concepts I'm going to describe in this blag post. I'm just surprised by how much I remember from my high-school and college science courses. Whoot-whoot. Viruses Pathology is the scientific discipline specializing in sickness. What is important about it in this blog post is its nomenclature (words for things). A virus is a very specific type of pathological agent, and unfortunately it's often the go-to-word for bad science fiction writing when used to describe any infectious agent that they don't want you to spend too much time thinking about. First of all, a virus is not alive in the conventional sense of the word. To date there has never been an independently motile viral organism discovered or classified, that is viruses can't move on their own. Secondly, viruses cannot reproduce without pre-existing cellular mechanisms provided to them by a host cell. Further, these cellular mechanisms must be active and alive. I shall now repeat myself. VIRUSES NEED LIVING CELLS IN ORDER TO REPRODUCE AND CANNOT MOVE ON THEIR OWN!!!!!!!!!!1$#1T So why is that true? And how can viruses spread so quickly if that (the latter bit) is true? Well, to understand that you need to know what a virus physically is, and how it works. In the most simplest terms, a virus is a glob of RNA (not DNA, this is another thing bad science fiction gets wrong) poured into a container made of proteins. The container protects the RNA, and through biochemical mechanics is able to latch onto and then inject its RNA payload into a host cell. The RNA then hijacks the cell's own bio-mechanics, the various bits of the cell that control its function, keep it alive, repair it, and let it divide. The hijacked systems then produce more viruses, often to the exclusion of many other important functions until, finally, the infected cell bursts open flooding the immediate area with potentially thousands of new viruses. It's important to remember that viruses are ridiculously tiny compared to cells because, after all, they don't rely on their own support systems to reproduce. Viruses spread quickly because one virus can make thousands of copies of itself with just one infected cell, also, viruses have been around for literally billions of years. Ever since self-replicating organic molecules (like DNA, RNA, and prion protein molecules) have existed, it's probably safe to assume that viral life has existed. Viruses, therefore, have had a lot of time to tailor themselves to be as infectious as biochemically possible, and have evolved protein containers hardy enough to remain viably infectious in some of the most harshest conditions on the planet. So how should you, as writers, handle fantastic alien infections if they so obviously don't act like viruses? Well... there are other words and phrases that are perfectly usable, and probably carry the same menace as 'virus'. Words like: pathogen, vector, or infectious agent. You can also literally make up words using sciencey-sounding conventions like using root words, prefixes and suffixes in order to describe something not already in the language, a good example would be: iso-viral life form. Iso is a Greek prefix best translated into, "kind of like", so an iso-viral life form would be a phrase used to describe a life form that acts somewhat like a virus, but isn't necessarily a virus. Be creative, but don't be wrong. Category:Blog posts